I love springtime! I love seeing all of the different colors of butterflies, moths, and dragonflies. I have been assisting a couple plan a party for their twins’ 1st birthday party. They have decided on a bright, airy, colorful butterfly theme. Here is a board I have put together to use as creative inspiration in the planning process. Enjoy!

I found this website about invitations, courtesy of BizBash Los Angeles. Enjoy!

A New Site for Online Invites

An email invitation from Pingg Photo: Courtesy of Pingg

Pingg, the latest addition to the crowded online invitation market, offers a few handy new features for event planners. The site’s free invites are completely customizable: Users can upload their own logos, photos, and PDFs—or, for an extra charge, choose from more than two million stock images. Invitations, event details, and follow-ups can be sent via email, text message, Facebook, another Web site, or with actual print invitations sent through the mail.

Each event automatically gets its own ad-free Web page that can be customized with photos, videos, charity registries, Google Maps, news, RSS feeds, guest comments, and R.S.V.P. tracking. R.S.V.P. options include the ability to limit an event’s capacity and to allow invitees to bring guests or transfer their invites to others. Planners can also use Pingg to create and print guest lists for check-in at the door.

I have fallen completely in love with Diffa, and Dining by Design! BizBash New York recently published a series of articles about this company and their innovative tabletop designs. I hope you will be as inspired as I am. Enjoy!!

Each year when the Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS Dining by Design benefit hits New York—recruiting designers to dream up elaborate tabletop looks—we record the myriad inspirational ideas the event offers. This year was no exception, and our style editors were on the prowl last week, spotting new place setting concepts, identifying color trends, and (lucky you) highlighting the event’s 10 most steal-able ideas. You can find an archive of our coverage of the event here.

Designers at Diffa’s Dining by Design showcase always offers a multitude of concepts to adapt to other events. This year’s most-likely-to-reappear concepts included patterned seat cushions, veggies as centerpiece fodder, and napkin rings made from colored paper swatches. Here’s a list of ideas that made an impression. READ MORE

Perhaps as a nod to spring, many designers at Diffa’s Dining by Design event incorporated yellow accents into their tables this year, with shades of the color popping up as table linens, vases, statuary, and flowers. Here’s a look at an array of the warm settings. READ MORE

Crystal-studded orbs, vintage-looking fixtures, traditional cut-crystal chandeliers, dangling pendants dressed up with fabrics, and mod prisms embellished lighting at many of the tables at Diffa’s Dining by Design event at Skylight. Here’s a selection of the glittering installations. READ MORE

Kravet Inc. used Lucite-topped books as place settings.Photo: Francine Daveta for BizBash

Books, picnic baskets, film reels, logs, and fabric encased in plexiglass were among the unusual props and decorative devices that topped tables at Diffa’s Dining by Design event at Skylight. Here’s a look at some of the most striking settings. —Lisa Cericola & Mark Mavrigian

David Stark’s dining environment for Benjamin Moore was made mostly out of paint swatches and paper.Photo: Francine Daveta for BizBash

This year, Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS’s annual Dining by Design fund-raiser moved from its most recent home at the Waterfront to the downtown venue Skylight. The new location had a strong impact on the experience of walking through the showcase, which recruits a slate of designers and sponsors to build imaginative dining environments.

Compared with the Waterfront, with its exposed brick and steel beams (and the benefit’s previous homes at the Hammerstein Ballroom and Roseland) Skylight’s big white box provided a brighter, less distracting background for the designers’ intensely layered creations. And the new site’s smaller size necessitated a tighter collection of tables (cut down from more than 50 to 39) that made for a more focused—and more easily navigable—forum for locating trends and gathering ideas.

“It’s always a challenge to find a venue here, and for us, [Skylight is] a very user-friendly venue, with two load-in points—plus it’s a blank canvas for us; it’s a gallery,” said Diffa’s special events manager, Steven Williams. “It’s a little more exclusive because it’s smaller, and we have more sponsors this year.”

So, speaking of trends and ideas, how did the designers fill the new location? READ MORE

I love vintage and Victorian styles. They are very romantic, and if I could decorate my whole life like this, well, I would be in heaven. But this is only one theme in the world of weddings and events. There are many other influences that can make up your personal wedding style. For this inspiration board, I used elements that had a vintage feel, but are modern at the same time. Enjoy!!